competent person Help and information on all topics relating to your central heating, air conditioning and ventilation issues.

[kevarch]

hi
in the servicing section of my glow-worm combi instruction book it keeps mentioning that work must be carried out by a 'competent person'. Does anyone know how and by whom a 'competent person' is defined?
many thanks.

[plumbbob]

For gas appliances, a "competent person" would refer to a CORGI trained and approved engineer.

[Steve the gas]

Hi Kev,

A cometant person is one who has passed ACS assessments on the relevant elements such as (all seperate) boilers,cookers,fires,warm air,meters,etc,etc.

However, the HSE does not prevent householder doing some things.BUT big BUT if something went drastically wrong it could be the diyer in court explaing how he/she can be deemed competant.


Big can of worms.

If its just a service it will only cost between £50- £90

Hth

[chris_linney]

a competent person is a person who holds the relevant qualifications to work on the appliance , for gas at the moment it is acs qulification minimum ccn1 + cen1 and a valid corgi registration number, they say competent person to avoid reprinting things some manufacturers will say corgi registered enginner,
if you do not hold these qualifications you are not deemed competent by law , and as such you should never ever ever mess around with a gas appliance , you could also invalidate your house insurance

[htg engineer]

There's many views on this subject and there's been many discussions on here.

Basically a competent person is a RGI. In my opinion it's really not worth carrying out DIY gas work, putting yourselves and others at risk.

No-one on here including myself knows everything there is to know about gas installations, appliances, regulations etc etc and many of us have been doing the job for years, with training and assessments. Even the best engineers are learning new things when they arrive at jobs, and they do have to refer to literature - so how a DIYer can just decide they're competent, without even owning or having access to a 'U' gauge, is beyond belief.

I've seen many DIYers using fairy liquid and water as leak detection solution, firstly it may cause the material to deteriorate if not removed and it really IS NOT a fail-safe method of testing for gas tightness - in the gas world the last engineer (person) to work on the gas installation is responsible for the whole dwelling not just the one fitting you installed.


htg

[kevarch]

thanks for the replies. i'm not intending to do any of the work myself, i just thought it was an ambiguous phrase and wanted to clear it up before engaging any one to work on it.